“Have you brought the
Transistor?” I asked my friend Anbarasu. “Yes” he said with a smile on his
face. He brought the transistor to school hiding it from his father who
usually tunes into the All India Radio news every day in the evening once he turns
back to home from his duty. That day we had few special classes as our class 10
board examination was nearing. Parents and teachers were complaining and even
cursing cricketers for organising such a tournament during exam season. But we
the boys had double pressure, one to clear the examination with good percentile
and next India should win all the matches and lift the World Cup. Watching
television particularly cricket was prohibited in most our house except in few
(me belong to the exception list). There used to be a common tendency among
boys to try/test which is forcefully bunged. This is the reason why transistor
radio entered our class room that day so secretly. The special classes
used to be in Maths and English most of the time. We attended the classes as
usual in the morning session and our plan was to escape in the afternoon
session to listen to the match with the transistor. The school I studied till
Class 10 was in a village surrounded by farm land where groundnut is usually
sowed in the summer season. Toilets and drinking water used to be in one common
place for which we need to walk minimum of 200m from our class. Going in pairs
everywhere used to be the trend. Our plan for the day was made by me. The match
starts after 1PM usually and our classes used to be till 03.30PM at the
extreme. Being a special class there used to be no definite time for start, end
or lunch timing except total hours. We planned that day to extend the class
somehow at least till 12.45PM at any cost by asking some stupid question at
least, so that we can extend our lunch hours till 01.30 or 01.45PM which will
host the crucial toss of the match. Post lunch break our strategy was to
disburse every 20 minutes one by one asking permission for going to toilet or
for drinking water or by doing both alternatively so that the scores are
updated continuously. During the lunch break we arranged the sitting position
to listen to the match near the toilet (in fact under a tree near the farm),
jumped the school wall into the farm land and uprooted groundnut plants to our
capacity which used to be our snack while listening the match and also in the
class during the lectures. There used to be two hurdles while listening to AIR
cricket commentary, one the transistor never receives signal on time and even
if received will not be clear and the next will be the Hindi commentary which
we hardly understand. Post lunch break we used to have complete list and
timing for one to request the teacher to exit out, many times we never return
on time making trouble for the next. Excitement will be high when one enters
the class. All our eyes will be on him and a smile on his face will guarantee
at the first instance that everything is right. Sometimes the teacher stops,
quizzes and don’t allow few to move out. Once the class is over we used
to run to the tree to listen for the next few minutes before my friend hides it
back in his bag to take back home before his father arrives.

Days have
passed, the game has changed, the technology has improved but the excitement
still remains the same. Now we don’t have to hide the transistor, don’t have to
play a trick to keep updated with the score. Thanks to Smartphone revolution.
From getting live updates on scores to watching it live the era has changed a
lot. Live scorecard was the trend before sometime and now one can watch
deferred live free of cost provided by the broadcaster itself, this is the best
thing which I like about the new starsports.com and its android app. I never
imagined that star sports will be playing in my mobile when we listened to the
scores in transistor exactly 11 years back. I will not be surprised even
if the next generation cricket broadcast changes to the way that the viewer
virtually feels his presence in the stadium watching it live.

“Role
model for everyone keeps rolling”, my childhood days had taught me so until
recently. At the age of 15 when my class teacher asked me in a class of 40
about my role model, I just squeezed my mind to name a different personality
who is neither mentioned nor known to at least few in my class. I said it is
“Shirin Ebadi” and it raised a few eyebrows about who she is? The teacher asked
me to give a glimpse of her and I concluded with the Nobel Peace Prize which
she received that time for her efforts for democracy and human rights. I
seldom understood the importance of democracy or human rights or at least the
contribution of Shirin Ebadi. It is not just me who did so; most of my
classmates did the same either choosing a famous personality or a person who
was popular or in news recently. The classes and batches continued to change,
so are the role models too. To the best of my knowledge, I had not less than 10
role models from my school till the college. It includes A P J Kalam when he
was President, Dr.Sylendar Babu IPS after reading his motivation book, Che
Guevara after reading a book on him, Mark Zuckerberg after watching the movie
Social Network, Sourav Ganguly when he was at his best, Vladimir Lenin, Subhash
C Bose, Bhaghat Singh, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Hemant Karkare, Arvind
Kejriwal and the list continues. It is true that these personalities had some
impacts in me in my course of journey till now, but all these impacts are
induced externally by someone or something and not natural. It was either the
news published or the book which I read made me consider someone as role model.
It was recently that I burst the myth within me and understood the fundamental
that role model need not be someone from the outside and my search therein for
a perfect role model has attained its final shape very recently.

My father passed away when I was 7 and it’s my mom who
brought up me and my brother with the support of my maternal uncle. She was
just 25 when we lost the bread winner of our family. She refused to marry
again, instead started to work for the well-being of us. She used to tell that
she was a class topper in her class 10 board examination and also represented
the school in various competitions at district levels. She discontinued studies
as well as her co-curricular activities as she was made to marry due to family
constraints though she wished to pursue higher education. But both education
and marriage life was not complete as she wished. With the meagre education (in
real official certificates), she got jobs with meagre salary. She understood
that people don’t see what you know, but they just see what certificate you
have before offering a job. She encouraged us in all possible ways and admitted
us to a private school. We had good uniforms, books, pencils etc., and in real
we never understood till recently the sacrifice she made to shape the present
me. All she wished was our wish to come true, irrespective of what it is. I
wonder how I missed to notice a role model very near to me for all these years.
We usually have Myopia when we search for a role model and it took me 25 years
to cure it to find my perfect role model near me, in fact very near to me.

My
preparation for Civil Services helped me to visualize something related to
women empowerment and the policies followed by government to implement the
same. Special reservation, exemption, fund assistance etc. are available for
women who are separated from their husband. She never used any of the options
in her life and she came up and made us to come up all alone without any
external assistance of any kind. She never worried about the society and it
makes me nervous now to think how cruel the society would have been two decades
back. I have taken few policies and made few investments now to secure the
future of my dependents, but she neither had any security nor did any
investment and she started the ever ending marathon with infinite hurdles
without any knowledge of how it will be, but with a firm mind to tackle it.

What my Mom – my role model has made me
to realize?

I
wouldn’t say that my mom has taught me, in fact she has never given me lecture
of any kind, but all she made me is to realize from within me.

You
don’t have to have any prior knowledge to succeed in something, you can
learn on the go from your failures and can succeed for sure if you are
firm on your goal.

Believe
in you, there will be people to help you, but don’t expect.

Look at
the positive side of life when something negative happens.

Do not
be crest fallen, failures teaches you more than what success does.

Money
is not the source of happiness, it is within.

In
society point of view,

Women
Empowerment must to be given top priority.

Respect
women. Teach those who disrespect.

Do not
speak ill of someone, you are part of the society and it is you who make
the society.

Educate
girl child.

Men and
Women are equal, women can do everything what a men can do.

The”
Me” now is made by “Mom” and I am proud to be Me. I found my role model little
late but it is not an induced one, but a natural. I didn’t find any critique
now as it happened before when I say my mom is my role model, not because they
don’t want to hurt me but they don’t have anything to criticize in real.
Thank You Mom for all your sacrifice and shaping me as the person what I am
now. Thank You Blogadda and Gillette for giving me an idea about what to gift
my Mom for this mother’s day. What else will be a better gift than sharing this
post with my Mom?